Steve Jobs understood something about marketing, which gave him a strong, competitive advantage. I’d like to share it with you. It’s easy to understand, simple to put into practice and can massively improve your results.

Saying and doing

It starts with understanding the following: There’s often a huge difference between what people say and what people do.

I spoke with a blogger recently, who polled his readers to see if they would be willing to pay for a premium service. He accurately described the service in detail, including the small monthly fee. In total, 73 people took time to respond, saying they’d “happily pay for the service”.

Just 8 of them signed up!

Steve Jobs and focus groups

Yes, we absolutely should listen to what our marketplace is saying. However, we need to remember that people often say what they think we (or their friends) want to hear or things that make them look good.

This is why Steve Jobs shunned focus groups. He learned that people in focus groups tended to say smart, generous things in order to look good. He found their feedback to be not only of little real value, but potentially misleading. That’s a dangerous mix.

It’s a good idea to listen to what people say. However, we tend to make massively better decisions when we watch what people do.

The early bird

This is why many vendors offer early bird prices when they launch a new service or product. For a limited time, they market the new service at a reduced rate and see what kind of interest there is.

If people are not buying at the early bird price, vendors know that their marketing or their service (or product) needs to improve before the full launch.

If people are eagerly buying, vendors know there’s a significant demand.

If you’re thinking of polling your contacts, readers or friends to see if that idea of yours is worth investing in, think again. Yes, that information can be useful. However, actions speak louder than words.

Here are some ideas, which you can use to dramatically improve the results of all your written marketing.

It’s all about the marketing power of headlines.

Your headline has to capture the reader’s attention

Headlines are important. Really important.

You see, it doesn’t matter how great your message is, if too few people ever read it. That’s where your headline (or title or subject line) comes in. The headline’s primary job is to attract attention, gain interest and then motivate the reader to carry on reading.

Think about it:

The headline is what inspires prospective clients to open your marketing email.

It’s what motivates them to read your blog post or article, when someone shares it on a social network.

It’s what compels them to listen to your podcast or watch your video.

It’s also what grabs their attention and interest when they see one of your advertisements.

Advertising legend David Ogilvy was in no doubt regarding the importance of headlines. He famously said:

“When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar.”

Treat your headlines with the importance they deserve. Give yourself plenty of time to craft the best headline possible. The following tips and examples will help you get the balance right.

Your headline should accurately reflect your content

Because headlines play such a huge role in getting your content noticed, it’s tempting to over exaggerate them. (Yes, the headline of this post is a tongue in cheek example of what I mean).

Sometimes called clickbait, these attention-grabbing headlines are proven to generate traffic. The reason I strongly recommend most people reading this not to adopt that headline strategy, is this:

Your headlines make a promise, which your content needs to deliver on.

Make your headlines as compelling as you can. Use words that will compel people to read what you have to say. But make darn sure that your content backs up the promise of the headline. You may be able to fool someone once or twice with clickbait. But unless your content delivers on the promise of the headline, people will quickly learn to ignore you.

Your headline needs to be written for your target market

Your marketing message is intended to connect with a very specific group of people: Your prospective clients or customers. The headlines you use should do the same. This means speaking their language and addressing their concerns and opportunities.

Here’s why this matters:

By focusing your headlines around the interests of your target market, you help your marketing message to attract the attention of the right people.

Conversely, by using headlines that attract the attention of a wider group of people, you cease to be directly relevant to your target market.

In other words, use headlines that are directly relevant to your prospective clients.

Your headlines should match your medium

If you’re writing a headline that’s intended for a print magazine, newspaper or flyer, you have certain freedoms, which you don’t have when writing for the internet.

For example, if you want your internet article’s headline to be fully displayed in search results, you need to use around 60 / 65 characters or fewer. Going beyond that will see your headline cut short.

If your headline is intended for email marketing, you need to take other things into consideration. For example, if you include exclamation marks!! in your subject line, along with a number and maybe a word that’s in ALL CAPS, it’s highly likely to end up in a lot of spam filters. Email software looks for certain common factors used by spammers and if it sees them in the email headlines you use, it could wrongly treat your marketing as spam.

Here’s the thing: When it comes to headlines, you need to adapt depending on the medium you’re using.

The only 2 types of headline that matter

There is a lot of debate among marketing professionals, regarding the correct way to use headlines. They take entrenched stances, each insisting that their approach is the only strategy that’s professional or effective.

In almost every case I have seen, they totally miss the point!

When it comes to the headlines you use in your marketing, there are just 2 broad categories worthy of your attention.

Headlines that work for you and your business goals.

Headlines that are failing you and your business goals.

You need to find the correct balance for what you want to achieve. And it will differ depending on your brand, your industry and your business model.

Now, it’s not a strategy that would work for every business. However, it’s proven itself to be an extremely successful approach for the BuzzFeed business model. And that’s largely because the quality of the content is consistently compelling, so their readers return.

In summary

Experiment until you find what works best for you. Test and measure your headlines, titles and email subject lines. Just make sure that your content backs up the promise they make.

Get this balance right and you can dramatically and measurably improve your marketing results.

Today, I’m going to explain how the best service providers keep their clients happy, generate valuable referrals and build a great reputation.

It’s all about the difference between delivering what a client wants and delivering what a client needs.

Wants and needs

Think about some of the most powerful commercial logos. Apple, McDonald’s Nike, Adidas, Facebook and Target, etc. All of these designs are super simple. A child could reproduce any of them in a few seconds.

Now, imagine for a moment what happens when a business owner hires a great designer to create their logo. The designer then gets back to the client with a smart and simple design.

Because the business owner is not a design professional, they want MORE for their money.

More lines.

More colours.

More detail.

More complexity.

If the designer gives the client what the client wants, the client ends up with a confusing piece of junk.

If the designer gives the client what the client needs, the client ends up with an effective, professionally designed logo.

How the best service providers get this right

The best service providers use education, to help the client understand what the client needs.

When the service provider does this correctly:

The client ends up with what they want and what they need.

The service provider ends up with a happy client, who has a great piece of work. That’s the kind of client who provides valuable referrals and the kind of work, which helps you build an excellent reputation.

We either use software to block them or we mentally block them. But we block them.

This means business owners using those pestering tactics, are seeing worse and worse results. So they then spend even more time and money, to push their message ever harder. And even more people learn to block them. That’s why there’s so much noise out there.

Here’s a much better alternative.

Making a difference

We pay attention to the marketing that makes a difference. It doesn’t demand our attention. It commands our attention. It stands out for all the right reasons.

Valuable tips and ideas from a YouTube channel, podcast, blog or newsletter we subscribe to.

Useful updates from our service providers.

Trusted recommendations from our friends.

Targeted, valuable offers from vendors we trust, who know what we enjoy.

Eagerly anticipated communications from groups we’re members of.

Amazing service, which motivates us to return to a vendor again and again.

These tactics make a positive difference. So we value them. We pay attention because they’re useful. They don’t even feel like marketing. They’re focused on helping us rather than pestering us.

The big question is…

Which group are you in?

We know the good intentions behind our marketing. We know we’re professional and that people would love us, if only they knew how great our service is. So when we add them to our email list or call them at work when they’re busy – we think that it’s okay.

But it isn’t. The same rules apply to us. If it’s unwanted, it’s noise and if it’s noise, it’s working against us.

Everything you do to market your business is either training the marketplace to ignore you or training them to embrace you. It’s working against your business or working for your business.

So whenever possible, instead of making a noise, make a difference. And it’s always possible to make a difference.